


the same space is not meant for us

by ravinilla



Category: Naruto
Genre: Existentialism, M/M, Naruto the Klutz, Post-Konoha Crush but Pre-Search for Tsunade, Pre-Slash, Undertones of Konoha being Shit, Weirdness, i don't even know what else to tag this with, it's a weird one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravinilla/pseuds/ravinilla
Summary: Naruto wakes up, and he knows this is not his house.





	the same space is not meant for us

**Author's Note:**

> First, this was inspired by one of my favorite doujinshi: [Uta ha kikoezu](http://www.utopia-doujinshi.info/03/uta_ha_kikoezu.php).
> 
> Second, there’s a lot of Japanese house structural terms in this fic, but the most important one is the souzu ([a type of fountain that you’ve likely seen before but never knew the name of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishi-odoshi#/media/File:Shisendo_Souzu.jpg)). it’s a tube of bamboo that slowly fills with water, spills over, and then hits the ground it’s on, making a noise.
> 
> Context clues should give you an idea for the other terms, but I'll put a small glossary at the end for you.

There's a strange sense of displacement as he begins to surface into the waking world. Something isn't... right, and the grogginess is refusing to let his brain sort out what it could be. Everything seems different, but... not wrong, or bad.

 _There were no nightmares,_ his mind tells him first thing.

No nightmares? Thank the gods.

His back creaks in protest when he squirms, unusually sore and stiff. _This_ definitely isn't his bed. And it doesn't smell like his room either—yeah, his room has a smell and he loves it, even if it's mostly of mustiness and old ramen. It meant _home,_ kind of, and where he is right now definitely isn't home. It smells too... dusty and sterile at the same time. Like a super old hospital room.

He reaches up to pull of his nightcap, only for his hand to grope at air.

_I'm not at home._

Naruto's never been the quickest at waking up, but he can't remember anything at the moment and immediately shoots out of bed—a futon in a washitsu. Tatami floors, and he stands still to find that he can hear the hollow clap of a souzu nearby.

_Definitely not at home? What the fuck?!_

His feet shuffle around the futon in a vague panic until they're caught, and he falls right over. The fabric doesn't even _smell_ like him. He's big on smells. Like, so big. Like almost Kiba-levels of big.

These clothes aren't his either—not his pajamas, not his civvies, not his jumpsuit either. They're black and plain and... not him in any way that matters. The souzu continues clapping. None of this feels real.

Prying his face from the pillow that gave his neck a crick, he peers around the washitsu and wracks his brain for the last thing he remembers before ending up _here._ It's a guest room, obviously. He's smart enough to tell that much. Yeah, definitely a guest room, even if the tokonoma is empty, save for a hanging scroll that says something about _fire._

Okay, so he's still in the Land of Fire... maybe.

"Aw, hell..." he mumbles, sitting up. His butt gets that weird, tingly feeling that it does when he's nervous. He... has to use the restroom. Fuck. He doesn't know where the restroom is.

Pushing out of the futon, he ignores the way the tatami feels under his feet—weird, craggily, kinda itchy even if his soles are calloused—and goes for the shoji that leads to the outside rather than the one that would lead to the rest of the house, he guesses.

It's morning, at least. Super early, especially by his standards. Kakashi-sensei is probably still in bed, coming up with new excuses for the team as to why he'll be late when they meet up. The wooden floor of the engawa isn't uncomfortable like the tatami, smooth and a little warm instead since that odd time between spring and summer is warm.

 _Ahh, I'm gonna piss myself!_ he thinks in a rush, and darts along the engawa to either find an outhouse or a bathroom. Maybe he should've gone through the house instead? So he decides to go back through another sliding door and hope he doesn't stumble upon someone.

Empty room. Completely empty.

He doesn't have time to think about this because he rushes through to the hallway, tossing his head every which way to get a feel for the layout, even though this won't help him at all. His feet slap over the wood and seem to echo through every hallway, but just as he's about to give up and defile a stranger's home, he runs face-first into a wood door.

"Oh, thank _fuck."_

Before, there wasn't much time to pay attention to just how _silent_ the house really was, but while he's in there, Naruto can _still_ hear the souzu's claps against stone. Where could it be? The house was... freaking _huge_ (he should know, he just trampled through every hallway possible), and he could still hear it? Who lived here?

"Oh gods, what if it's _haunted?"_ he warbles aloud after washing his hands. The mirror shows blood leaving his face. His heart jumps. Leave it to his luck for him to wake up in a place full of ghosts!

Posture ridged and every movement and step stony, Naruto slides open the bathroom door and peeks his head out. He _has_ to get the _heck_ out of here.

"Okay, okay, no big deal," he laughs shakily, "I can do this, I can make it out alive. No big! Really, I'm cool. We're good. Just dandy, actually!"

So he wobbles down the hallway, not sure of the way he came, clinging to the wall like a bug, and tries not to scream at every creak under his feet. Thank _gods_ it's daytime and not night. He'd die on the spot, for sure. Dim light is filtering through most of the halls and rooms he passes, all unfamiliar in every way, and he obstinately avoids any dark corners. How could someone _live_ in a place like this?!

Eventually, he finds himself back at the room he woke up in, standing next to his futon. Folded neatly at its foot, something he hadn't noticed before, is his orange jumpsuit and forehead protector.

...Okay, he definitely hadn't done that. And when he picks them up to sniff at, he finds they've been _washed._

Great, so not only is the place haunted, but it's haunted by _cleaning spirits?!_

"That's it, I'm so screwed." he laments with a watery voice, clutching his clothes close to his chest.

The house's eerie silence is starting to shake him. He practically throws himself from one outfit to the other and ties his forehead protector a little too tightly. Where are his sandals? Where the heck is the front entry? The house is honestly like a maze.

A ghost maze.

A maze specifically tailored to test his sanity.

Is this even a real house? None of this feels real. He's probably going to die here. No big deal.

So he slips back outside and follows the engawa, and the clapping of the souzu gets louder until he eventually finds its source. The water trickle leads to a stone pond where koi lazily swim around. Living creatures. Not ghost fish? He's not sure right now, but the souzu doesn't stop moving on the account of him finding it. He's either close to the front, or at the very back of the house.

Heck.

He keeps walking. Then, a wall ends his path.

"Oh, fuck." he sighs, glaring at the stone wall.

"Wait, I'm a shinobi, walls can't stop _me."_ He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand and hisses at how the metal of his forehead protector bangs it. "Ouch!"

But not having his sandals would stop him. What if he sticks his foot on something? Dammit. He was running out of options here. He goes through the shouji next to him.

Inside, he clears his throat. "H-Hello...?"

Nothing. Ghosts don't have voices, right. Maybe. He's... not actually sure.

After what seems like no less than _three_ eternities, Naruto finds the entry way. On the stone floor below the wooden step are two pairs of sandals: one blue and one black. Okay. Well, he doesn't have two pairs, or didn't from the last time he remembers. What happened exactly? He can't think right now. Which is which must be obvious because of the color, but...?

The stone is much cooler and his toes curl while he inspects each one. The... nicer pair must be his right?

"Uh..."

No, that can't be right. He plops down, his ankle bones pushing uncomfortably from the stone, and crosses his arms in deep thought. One of these is his, for sure. Unless the ghosts can _clone objects._ And _change the clone's colors._

"Gods, they're so powerful," he whimpers, "Have mercy... I'm just a baby..."

There are steps. Naruto freezes. A staircase is seated into the wall across from him. Steps. His heart leaps painfully and beats in his ears, violently overcoming the silence.

_Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck—_

The steps keep coming. He reaches for a kunai and it thankfully doesn't slip through his drenched palms. If it's a fucking ghost, how on earth does he plan to attack it?

_I'm literally going to die. I'm in a strange fucking house and oh gods I'm really gonna die this is it this is it this is—_

"What are you doing."

Naruto _screams._ The kunai _thwaks_ into the wall next to the staircase.

"That's my wall, you dumbass."

The scream echoes through the house, but Naruto's not paying attention to that now. He peeks through his arms wrapped around his face. Pale legs, black shorts, body suit...

"Sasuke!"

Relief floods every part of him and he practically throws himself at his teammate, only to end up on the floor when Sasuke steps out of the way.

"Oh my gods, Sasuke, holy fuck, _Sasuke—"_

"Stop _yelling."_ Sasuke heaves, rubbing his forehead.

Naruto rolls over and positively _beams_ because it's Sasuke! And not a ghost! Or—

"You're not. Dead. Are you?"

Sasuke stares, unamused. Naruto pushes himself up into sitting.

After a thought, he reaches over to grab at Sasuke's wrist, who hisses and snatches himself back.

"What the hell, dead last?"

But Naruto is busy holding his own hand, crying out his relief.

"You're solid! You're here! Alive! Thank _fuck!"_

In that way only Sasuke can, he glowers, holding his own wrist.

"You're such an idiot."

He turns on his heel to snatch the kunai out from the wall and then turns down a hallway.

"Bastard!" Naruto calls after him. "Wait up!" His legs have to be made of jelly after all the stress he just went through.

He finds Sasuke in the kitchen, at the stove with his arms moving. He stands and the doorway and stares at the Uchiha crest imprinted on the back of the black jumper, and has a sudden epiphany.

"This is your house!"

The souzu claps again.

The gas stove starts up.

_Noise._

Sasuke hardly acknowledges his realization and says instead, "Why are you just... always so loud."

Naruto snorts and takes a seat the table. He doesn't say as much, but he should tone it down. It's rude to be shouting and howling in someone else's house; he knows this much at least. His eyes stay strained on Sasuke's back. Sasuke is barefoot, not wearing his leg guards or his arm guards. Seeing him dressed down like this is weird.

What's even weirder is seeing him at a stove when something is sizzling. Naruto shifts.

Sasuke doesn't talk to him, opting instead to move around for more ingredients to whatever it is he's making. Naruto doesn't appreciate how it makes himself out to be another piece of furniture in his morning, but he can't pull the words out of his throat to complain about it. He shifts. And shifts again. And again.

 _"Sasuke."_ he whines, dropping his head onto the table. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, moron."

He doesn't speak in questions, only condescending sentences that strike at Naruto's nerves in all the wrong ways.

"It's not like I can see from down here, bastard!" he snaps.

"Not my problem."

He's right. It's not. So Naruto decides to solve _his_ problem by getting up to get a good look.

"Omelettes...?" he asks.

"Don't stand so close, you'll get burned, moron."

Naruto glares at him and has half a mind to flip the pan onto his stupid, concentrated face.

"No, not omelettes."

"But it's—"

"Omurice."

That's when Naruto spots the other frying pan with rice in it.

He blurts, "I didn't know you could cook."

Sasuke doesn't even _look_ at him, the prick.

"Not everyone can or wants to survive off enough ramen to kill, at the very least, a small army. I'm surprised you haven't dropped dead already."

Naruto huffs. "First of all, I'll have you know that ramen's fucking great." he says. "Second, I don't eat _that_ much."

This time, Sasuke spares him a bored look. Naruto takes it upon himself to plop back at the table.

"So, what, you're just gonna _eat_ in front of me, your honored guest?"

Sasuke snorts, but doesn't answer. Naruto glares, hoping that it's hard and hot enough to burn holes through his stupidly perfect shirt _and_ skin. It'd be just typical of the bastard to do something like that. What an asshole, honestly.

Continuing to, very insultingly, ignore Naruto's presence, Sasuke reaches over the stove to the windowsill to pluck something red from a plant gone unnoticed.

 _Apples?_ Naruto is about to say, but apples grow on _trees,_ not small, potted plants. He sees the green palm-like stem. _Oh, tomatoes. Right, right, Sasuke likes those, huh?_

He's not sure why he remembers that tomatoes are, in fact, Sasuke's favorite fruit-vegetable-thing. Naruto hates vegetables. Or is it a fruit? He doesn't hate fruit—but he doesn't like tomatoes, for sure.

A knife taps neatly against a cutting board. Two more eggs crack on the pan's rim.

_Noise._

He can't hear the souzu anymore.

Something is off about this. That feeling from when he woke up is back, only a little, and it's not... right, but it's not wrong either. He can't put his finger on it. He's in Sasuke's kitchen, in Sasuke's house, and Sasuke is... cooking. It's weird, right? He can't be the only one that thinks so, but Sasuke is moving about the whole thing like Naruto's not there.

He's not actually offended by this because it's par for their course, but something else about it just... sets Naruto a little off-kilter. Like, even though they're in the same room—even though _he's_ in the same room, there's some kind of... wall. Maybe. His brain's not picking good words or coherent structures.

Ceramic plates _clack_ onto the countertop. The stove knobs click as Sasuke turns off the burners. Chopsticks click against pan and plate, moving the food around. Naruto watches from a distance.

Sasuke goes to the refrigerator and it breathes open. He pulls out a jar of red paste. The jar clunks onto the wooden table. Naruto stares at it while Sasuke retrieves two plates.

Two plates?

"Thirsty?" Sasuke asks after setting down the dishes.

He doesn't wait for an answer because he's already grabbing cups—two cups—and pouring tea. Naruto notes that the omelette on the plate across from him (presumably Sasuke's) has orangy-red chunks, while his doesn't. That must be the tomato. Did Sasuke remember that he didn't like tomatoes, or was it that since tomatoes were his favorite, he just put them in his?

"Here."

Sasuke sets a cup in front of him. It clucks against the table. Green tea, Naruto realizes. He's never actually had it before, but it's supposed to be good, in the morning especially. Sasuke settles across from him. The red paste jar opens with a _pop._

"What is that?" Naruto asks, because he just found his words again, like the table joins them. It feels... weird.

"Ketchup." Sasuke replies, and tilts the jar.

Naruto doesn't know why he thought it was anything else, but he watches it pour from the jar slowly, like goop. He crinkles his nose. Sasuke then takes his chopsticks and slices down the middle of the omelette—it flaps open evenly, perfectly.

"Whoa, how'd you do that?" Naruto asks.

Sasuke snorts. "Leave it to you to be impressed by something so simple."

Naruto glares. "No, seriously! That was like, perfect. Don't insult me!"

He picks up his chopsticks too and is about to try his hand at it when he remembers that yes, he's in someone else's house.

"Th... Thank you for the food." he mumbles, and gods, he sure hopes no blush shows up on his cheeks.

Sasuke's already eating. So _then_ Naruto tries.

It fails miserably, doesn't cut evenly, doesn't even _go_ all the way through.

Sasuke snorts again.

"You musta sabotaged mine." Naruto says with certainty, a scowl lining his face.

"Is it my fault if you can't even manage this much?"

Naruto truly has half a mind to climb over the short table and clobber the bastard—but his stomach growls and stops him. When the heck was the last time he ate? Ah... He really can't remember anything from before he fell asleep at the moment. He wants to ask, but what would Sasuke say? Knowing this bastard, he'd probably make something up to confuse him.

Scowl deepening, Naruto digs into his meal.

"Ah—" he lets out after chewing his first bite, "It's... It's really good, what the hell?" He didn't even know eggs could _be_ this fluffy; he preferred his fried or poached.

Sasuke grunts but says nothing more.

Deciding that it's fine if he discards his table manners, Naruto begins wolfing down everything. His body had apparently been yelling at him for hours now about food, and he was just now realizing it.

The souzu claps.

Naruto stops mid-bite. Silence falls over the kitchen—no gas burners, no sizzling, no eggs cracking.

The souzu claps _again._

His stomach flipflops.

"Why'm I here?" Naruto finally asks, setting down his chopsticks.

Sasuke is already getting up to rinse his plate. He eats fast, doesn't he? The faucet runs.

"Bastard," Naruto says again, "don't ignore me! I can't just— _be_ in your house and not know why!"

The sigh that leaves Sasuke is tempered and tired, which sets Naruto off.

"Dude, what's your _problem?_ Can't you just tell me?!"

"If you're not smart enough to remember passing out in the middle of a street after an out-of-village mission, before which Kakashi specifically told you not to go anywhere but _home,_ then I have no reason to tell you."

Naruto draws up short, eyebrows raised. "I passed out?"

Sasuke mutters something under his breath that sounds like, _"Wow, you truly are a moron."_

Before Naruto can launch into a lecture about specifically _why_ Sasuke is the Biggest Bastard of All Time and list every reason in alphabetical order with chronological sources, Sasuke turns.

The faucet is still running. The sound of the water is smooth.

"Are you done?"

A glance shows him his plate is pretty much wiped down of food, but he doesn't remember scarfing it all down. His stomach isn't satisfied in the least bit. He's a growing boy! He'd need at least three more of these to even be half-full.

Instead of letting Sasuke take the plate, he pushes up and takes it to him.

While the faucet runs, Naruto is tempted to ask exactly _why_ Sasuke deemed it necessary to bring him back to his disgustingly huge house when he found him just laying face-down in the middle of the street. It's not like the bastard didn't know where _he_ lived. He can only guess that the reason he hadn't gone home himself was because he always met up with Iruka-sensei after a successful mission to have Ichiraku's.

Leave it to him to get himself into this situation. It wasn't bad, but... it wasn't that great either.

He takes a step back and glances between Sasuke and the doorway. The house's entryway is... around the corner and down the hall? Why? _Why_ is this house so big?

"You may as well stay until it's time to meet up with Sakura and Kakashi."

The faucet turns off. Silence. Then, Sasuke's feet pad against the wood and out of the room.

"Don't just leave me here!" Naruto whines, scampering after him.

"Did you even make up your bed and fold the clothes?"

Naruto pauses, but Sasuke keeps walking.

 _I didn't._ he thinks sheepishly, scratching the side of his neck.

"Figures." Sasuke responds without knowing his thoughts. "Don't worry about it then. Knowing you, you might tear everything up trying to make it neat."

"I resent that, bastard!" Naruto snaps when he catches up.

They've come into a living room, light pouring in from the open shoji. While Sasuke retrieves something from a nearby cabinet, Naruto wanders onto the wooden porch and glances around. The souzu claps, and he can see it from where he's sanding. The view is pretty here, grass and garden well-tended to. Sasuke must do all of this by himself, but where the heck does he find the time?

He stares at the souzu, watches the water trickle into it, and his heart speeds up. Every second that passes makes the bamboo hollow fuller, makes the tube heavier and that _sound—_

His heart nearly claws out of his chest when it claps.

His ears adjust to the quiet and now they pick up the water trickle and the rustle of the greenery as the breeze rolls by. Sasuke has closed the cabinet and seated himself on a sitting cushion, big, plush, and white in color with red tassels. Naruto looks over his shoulder at him; what does he expect Naruto to do? Sitting still is so hard, and sitting still in _these_ circumstances? He might as well be asking for Naruto to perform a life-or-death surgery.

"You're so _boring."_ Naruto huffs when he plops onto the engawa. "D'you expect me to just _lay_ here until we leave? Bo~oring..."

Sasuke doesn't honor him with a reply, even when he noisily flops onto his back. The sound echoes.

Naruto stares at the ceiling for a while and his brain gibbers about how high it is, and how he'll never be able to reach it from down here. There's quiet, but there's not silence. The ambient sounds of the outside—water, the souzu, birds, trees rustling—lull him a little, but he belatedly notes how there's no human sounds besides his own breathing. No murmur of nearby people, no vendors peddling their wares, no children crying out of excitement or sorrow. No human sounds.

The souzu claps, _loudly._ Naruto rolls over onto his stomach.

Sasuke has a ridiculously huge scroll rolled out in front of him and he's reading it with his eyes moving at an alarming speed that Naruto can't keep up with. There's no reason a scroll needs to be _that_ big. Is Sasuke going to read _all_ of that? There are a couple of smaller scrolls sat at the thigh pressed against the floor. Like... If those scrolls were Naruto's house, the big scroll Sasuke's reading would be Sasuke's house.

"It's big." he says aloud, and Sasuke adjusts for one arm to be folder around his upright knee. "Why's it so big?"

Sasuke kind of looks like a young shinshoku training, from his posture to his aura, and Naruto... is a mere spectator. Huh.

"Your house," he says again, though he meant to go on about the stupidly big scroll, "it's big. I got lost like, so many times. I really thought I was gonna d—"

He catches himself before he can say it, but it's too late. Sasuke's shoulders have stilled and his eyes aren't moving.

_Die here._

"Seriously, my apartment? Two rooms and a small closet _exactly."_ Naruto picks it back up, "One room for literally everything—y'know, kitchen, bedroom, living room—and then, my bathroom! Which is not much bigger than the closet, honestly. So more like. One room and two-thirds of a second room. Or maybe they're so small they don't even make a half? I'm not sure, I'm not good with these kinds of numbers, and—"

"Naruto."

His voice catches in his throat. The souzu claps.

"Seriously, shut up."

Naruto had fully expected there to be venom, some kind of _malice_ at least, but Sasuke just sounds exasperated. His heart beats so damn loudly in his ears that he's hearing his voice through a filter, and it hardly sounds like they're in the same room. Or the same house. Or the same plane of existence.

"Maybe if you gave me something to _do,_ bastard..." he replies, not trying to keep the words to himself.

Sasuke ignores him. Naruto continues watching while his brain grabs clumsily at things to say.

The souzu claps.

"Hey, how come..." He presses his lips together, but it's a genuine question, so why should he be punished for it. "How come you stay here? I mean—" He licks his lips, trying to ignore his stomach knotting. "It's so big... I mean, it must be a pain to keep clean, right?"

Sasuke hasn't been reading since Naruto almost tripped up before. This time, he looks up and Naruto's heart does a weird acrobatic trick it's never done before.

"It's my house." he says plainly, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, but..."

It's not like Naruto has a good argument to that. They really let Sasuke live all alone in this huge place? He... doesn't like that.

"It's different from my apartment." he says for no good reason at all, because it is. His apartment is small and good enough for just one him, just one _kid,_ but a whole house that might as well be a mansion in Naruto's eyes, all for also one kid? Yeah, he definitely doesn't like it the more he thinks about it.

Sasuke, though; he just sits there and stares like he's not understanding what Naruto's getting at, or even what he's saying. Naruto kind of doesn't understand himself, but—

"You. In a big house like this..." His voice is small, it's a little frustrating. Why can't his brain do this better? "It... sucks."

How does Sasuke—

"—even find _yourself_ in here, like? It's so big? How do you not lose your own body here? I thought I was gonna lose my mind trying to find a way out! And that _noise—"_

The souzu clapping makes everything seem a lot bigger, a lot more empty with the way it echoes through every hallway, every corner, every empty room, every—

"—space that this place practically takes up, oh my _gods,_ like hearing that _thing_ all the time would drive me nuts! And I really thought you were a ghost at first, right? I wouldn't be so surprised, you are super pale after all, but I'm surprised I didn't run into something wearing a hitaikakushi, like? What the hell? And you, Sasuke—"

He wakes up to this every day and just goes about it like it's completely normal? Naruto couldn't deal with that. He can't even deal with it for a few hours! Sasuke _lives_ here, and he moves so quietly that—

"—you might as well be a ghost!"

Naruto's last words hang in the air and Sasuke is completely still on his cushion, staring with eyes unusually wide.

The souzu claps.

 _How do you even exist here?_ Naruto thinks. He knows, _knows_ this is Sasuke's house, so it's only right that he feels out of place, but this is ridiculous. Though Sasuke stares straight at him, it's more like he's staring straight through him, and Naruto feels like he's doing the same. Like they aren't even looking at each other. Like they aren't even in the same room, the same house, let alone the same plane of existence.

"Sorry." Naruto suddenly mumbles, sitting up. Shame is creeping up his neck after crawling through his chest. "m'Just not used to it..."

There's not a reply, but he can hear Sasuke rolling up the scroll to be put away. Naruto is about to get to his feet when the souzu's inevitable clap stops him in his tracks. What's he going to say? Sorry? For what, even? His mouth moves faster than his brain, and everyone knows that. Sasuke's house is just so _big_ and he lives here... all alone...

And Naruto, here (here, not really here, sort of here?), can't really look at him properly or touch him properly. It's not like he _wants_ to, but it's weird. It's weird that they're in the same place, but... not.

A clock gongs loudly throughout the house, startling Naruto out of his skin.

"Close the door, will you?" Sasuke asks as he exits the room.

"Don't leave me!" Naruto cries after him, not wanting to get lost. He hurries to slide the shoji close and then dashes after Sasuke, following the padding of his feet. "Where're you going?"

"Didn't you hear?" Sasuke asks. "It's time to go."

Had it already been that long? Naruto doesn't know what time he woke up at, but they meet up at 9AM, and it feels like he's been awake for at least one eternity. This house does weird things to his sense of time's flow.

"Oh." he lets out dumbly, and more slowly follows Sasuke back to the entryway of the house. The walk isn't as long as he thought it would be.

Before he knows it, Sasuke is sitting down, bandaging up his arms and legs. The black pair of sandals are at his ankles, meaning... Naruto scowls at the blue pair. He needs to take better care of his stuff. He sits too and slips them on, adjusting the tightness before tapping the support under his toes.

He's up before Sasuke, so he takes that moment to watch his fingers nimbly wrap the bandages and then follow it up with the black straps acting as reinforcement. He has nice hands. The risen collar of his jumper shifts and there, in ink too dark to be anything but cursed, is the mark that _snake_ gave him. Naruto has to look away.

He wants to say something, but he's not sure what. His brain is too jumbled and confused because of how off-kilter he is in this house that is too big and occupied by only one. He feels the need to apologize again.

The souzu claps and Sasuke stands.

"Ready?"

Naruto wonders if this is what living with Sasuke would be like. Feeling odd and out of place constantly, on his toes and unsure of everything. That stupid souzu clapping at all hours of the day _and_ night.

"Dead last."

Sasuke snaps his fingers in front of Naruto's face, who blinks back to reality.

"Ah—Yeah." he replies, and tightens his forehead protector.

They step out of the house and start walking, but Naruto glances back, even without reason to. It looks smaller on the outside. There are no sounds indicating anyone else living there, but he imagines maybe—as much as he hates them—ghosts would prefer their privacy. He wonders if such ghosts like Sasuke staying, living in such a weird space that doesn't quite exist in this world, or the next.

Sasuke might be a bastard, but no one deserves to be in a place like this all alone.

It's only when they start blending with the morning crowd does Naruto realize they'd been in the Uchiha compound. It's like they've walked out of a completely separate dimension, and it disorients him. He never knew how separated it really was from the rest of the village.

That was his first time at Sasuke's house, and... He wasn't a big fan.

Before they arrive at the bridge, something completely slips out of his mouth.

"You should live with me."

He doesn't _think_ he's said the words loud enough for Sasuke to hear, but the way Sasuke freezes before the floor of the bridge tells him otherwise.

Sakura is already there, and she's calling for both of them, wondering why they arrived together. Naruto is wondering that himself, but he can't linger because his face is burning hot. He runs off to meet up with her.

Sasuke shouldn't live in that big place all alone.

...Naruto _would_ like it for them to share a space. One where he can actually see Sasuke and not feel like he's untouchable.

He steals a glance and Sasuke is ignoring both of them now, staring hard at the river underneath.

There's noise, _noise_ all around them now—the river, Sakura's voice, civilians, other training shinobi—but Naruto swears he can still hear the souzu's clap.

 

 

•

 

 

(Naruto doesn't need to exist in the same space as Sasuke. He doesn't, and shouldn't have to, especially not in _that_ house. Not the way Sasuke exists there.

He's still not even sure what compelled him to bring Naruto home, but he couldn't just leave him laying in the middle of the street, where no one else was going to help him. He's been feeling... strange since the attack on the village, and can't leave neither Naruto nor Sakura alone for more than a handful of hours. He _has_ to know they're okay.

...But instead of taking Naruto back to _that_ house, he should've taken him back to his own apartment.

Naruto was right about one thing: It's as plagued a place as anyone will ever see. The dead idle in every corner; they do not groan, they do not creak, but they do hang heavy in the air and bear down on Sasuke's skin. It's not right to expose Naruto to that, not at all.

Sasuke, for himself, doesn't mind too much.

After all, what's one more ghost to haunt where the dead linger?)

 

 

 

_(Sasuke almost wishes he could take Naruto up on his offer.)_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This took like 6 hours. My shoulder almost gave out on me.
> 
>  **Terminology:**  
>  (If you'd like to know more about these terms, feel free to look them up. They're all real, I promise.)
> 
>  **washitsu:** meaning japanese-style room. think of every traditional room you’ve seen in an anime with tatami mats.
> 
>  **tokonoma:** an alcove usually featured in guest rooms, containing decorative items such as wall scrolls, flower arrangements, vases, and etc.
> 
>  **engawa:** the wooden (or bamboo) patio/walkway/veranda lining the outside of traditional houses.
> 
>  **shoji:** a door, window, or room divider of translucent paper with a wooden frame and a lattice of overlapping wood or bamboo. these doors slide open.
> 
>  **shinshoku:** the male equivalent of a miko, a priest at a shinto shrine.
> 
>  **hitaikakushi:** the triangular piece of cloth that ghosts wear around their heads.
> 
> Crossposted to [Tumblr](https://uchiuzus.tumblr.com/post/171146953578).


End file.
